


When All is Undone

by briaeveridian



Series: A Mythology We Weave [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Ben POV, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, One Shot, One True Pairing, Supernatural Elements, Transformation, Wolves, happy ending/open ended, just a warning, not that much violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26049145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briaeveridian/pseuds/briaeveridian
Summary: Bestow upon your beast the night itself, however coldFor it is better not to know thyself from stories of old.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: A Mythology We Weave [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918027
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	When All is Undone

The forest is shadowmurky. It leaks into the fur and rattles the innards. Without knowing the extent, the wolf is submerged in it. And it becomes him.

All say he is as old as the trees themselves. Ageless, even, in form and fright. He lurks and scuttles around their villages, spreading nighthowl and bloodbreath. Stitched into the woods themselves. Bark and talon entwined. There is more but they do not see.

To them, he is terror manifest. A horror of history and myth, sewn into their warning-sharp fairytales. He contains the aggregate of darkness they refuse to acknowledge within themselves. This is their way. He plays his part.

It is a weight, a chain-cold burden the wolf resents. It condenses in his belly, ever empty and desiring. A wholly inhuman twisting of biology. For what remains of flesh is contorted and abused. Waxed and waned each month by the perpetual turning of time.

He is made worse by them. Acrid words and firelit fears. Their whispers always find in, magnetically pulled. He knows the truth. Part of his punishment is to be verbally disformed, unable to escape their conclusions, even as they change him further. And so, he drags the words from his flanks. They are carcasses perpetually on the verge of full-rot. Yet kept alive by the continued derision of the _civilized_ humans. 

Any of them could take his place. Everyone is familiar with the rules of this curse. Such shackles cannot be eroded or weakened. They are infinite in shape and weight. Binding to the last.

_But who would choose this?_

The villagers need him for other purposes. To signal _violent threat_ and _painful death_ to the children who disobey. The children who wander and wonder amongst the gnarled trees. Each one a flicker and heat, vibrating the very air with their vitality.

The wolf always senses them. They smell of hope and curiosity. Pungent and intoxicating. Pulling him in. To consume would lend an abhorrent satisfaction to his emaciating form. And yet, he keeps distance so not to scare them, more interested in proving the others wrong.

Trees have taken root in him, claiming his bones. Soil clouds his eyes, creating a dirt-stained mirage. The wailing of starlight invades his ears each night. There is no respite. Unless.

He finds the place where he once knelt, human and young, before the tree whose limbs span the sky. Here he prayed to past and present, searching for a purpose to guide him. It was the most vulnerable act he can recall. It haunts and humiliates.

The tree betrayed him and sent him sprawling. Into muck and mire, he was splayed. And what slim glimmer of dream beyond was swiftly snuffed.

Even before then, there was a time of comfort. Details dart through the air, unwilling to be captured by his mind. And so he is left with only an impression of it, a fourpadded footprint left in muddy ground. The murmur of it besieging.

An anchor of agony grinds the world around him. For his is slightly displaced. Living in the in-between, an interstitial space designed for him alone. Even if he wanted to hunt the living, he cannot. The unliving realm asserts itself as owner and the wolf is too weak to protest.

Through it all, he retains himself. Refusing to give in. Refusing to submit. He will let the woods desecrate him long before allowing the humans that gratification. Of course, if he were to die, someone would have to replace him. He keeps the fate to himself. 

_No one else deserves this_.

Of all his sights, there is one who entices. She blazes entirely. To witness makes his eyes ache.

No sunshine reaches the wolf’s domain. Her sheer brilliance overwhelms, vibrating the earth under his paws. It pushes a wind through his fur. It melts a layer of heartice that is unyielding to all else.

She too is out of reach. Not that the wolf is worthy to be near her. The woman ignites the dark. Smiles pour from her lips like liquid, provoking plants to rupture earth and buds to burst and flowers to leap. Creation and luminescence are her gifts. And though their worlds are only parallel, he is dazzled by the mere glimpse.

Red is her color. Its pigment cascades her hood, trailing her steps. And she is made exquisite by its audacity. Hair spills out against moss-soft skin, her form delicate and lithe. He imagines his teeth sinking into it, just to see if her blood matches the cape. Just to taste something alive.

But this thought unleashes his own inner hounds, the beasts that rip and shred. A wish to take her life, if only to experience her, makes the wolf believe even less in his connection to whatever humanity remains.

_You are loathsome. Foul and futile. Give yourself to the relentless mouths of decay._

A shred of hope to see the woman sutures him to this existence. Buried and bruised. He accepts how far he has descended into the layers of earth, the welcome chimes of hell ricocheting in his ears. 

Until that unknown realm takes him, against his will to the last, he will stalk the woman.

The wolf hears what the villagers think. That they know her. She is the golden one, with glowfilled tendrils that undulate rhythmically. It is their purpose to worship her. To give honors and gifts. All such things bestowed at her delicate feet.

Everyone calls her The Innocent One. She carries life and rebirth. Her legend is that of thin, gossamer thread, held between reverent fingers. 

Their duty is to hold her, bolster the story, however frayed through time it has become. But the woman never corrected them. The falsehood of her myth kept spinning, a spiderweb glistening in the morning light, a fragility they protected. She remains silent, eyes pools of spring breeze and harvest winds.

The wolf is enthralled by this presence, which splashes speckles of his opposite, a distilled lightness. An antipode of his entire existence. His gaze is always hungry to be touched by her, for even the shadow she casts is embroidered with brightness.

Each time she ventures to the woods is too brief.

The season shifts and she comes less frequently. A wave of yearning submerges him, frigid and bitter. It pricks and lacerates, his body carved by grief. Where no fur mottles and clumps, scars constellate the bare ragged skin.

After a time, it lessens. And he grasps onto gratitude for having seen her at all. Even knowing such goodness exists.

Long stretches of time peruse him, for he is but an article of eternity. Created to be used by its passage. The isolation takes on behaviours all its own. Visceral and confounding. He mocks himself for both clutching at routine and casting it aside. Only monotony regulates.

Then, a new day germinates around him, as fetid as the one before. And yet. 

_There is something…_

Taking to a run, the wolf tears through the forest, seeking out the source, tracking and tracing. It is the most he has forced himself to move in many years. Each limb protests, muscles inert too long. But there is exhilaration too. A promise of _possibility_. 

He berates himself for the hope of it. Bares his teeth as the sheer foolishness, the naivete. After all he has known, how can there be any morsel of optimism?

All at once, she is there. Standing, dappling the ground with her illumination. He is too close. His body seizes and he rears away. But it is too late.

She sees him. A mystery profound that shocks and rattles. Her eyes pierce his and it is a puncture of understanding, a jolt of confusion.

The woman in red does not shudder from him. Does not turn and escape. Without fear, she gazes and breathes. Each one audible, serene.

He has not seen soft eyes such as these in many years. It stokes bile within him and he fights to steady himself through her fixed stare. 

No fear, no disgust. It is as if she recognizes him as something _other_ than he is, something he once was, something he could be. To her, he knows he is recognized. And she to him. A binary pull between particles far-flung.

The next thing he knows he is alone. But a sense of comfort still holds him, bolstering his haggard tissue. Keeping his fragmentshards together. 

He does not know the passage of moments. So he lingers where he encountered her. Wishing to touch the very ground where her feet were placed.

When he sees her again, her body has shifted. It is uncontained. Her light escalates, form undone. She unravels as he gapes, blackened dagger teeth glinting in the ripples of her light.

Before his eyes she alters. Swift and physical, she becomes anew.

At first the villagers do not understand where she has gone.

It happens quite suddenly. They shriek their distress. _We have lost our maiden, the Innocent One has vanished. What will become of this world_. Children voice their parents' concerns, unknowing of the full scope of loss. Lamentations mount the sky, their shrill notes ringing in the wolf’s ears.

When at last they find her, their pungent vitriol gurgles and convulses. It nearly drowns the wolf. _You vile creature have stolen and imprisoned her, poisoning her soul. Keeping her away from us_. Their words are extra barbed. They hate him all the more. Thick rivers of disgust and rage swirl around them in the woods.

Undeterred, the two wolves merge with the shadows, leaping past the contortions of others. They are unbound and weightless, as wind is to sky. They are as one.

When at last the humans accept it was her own choice, they are repulsed. They rename her _Mistress Wolf_ and try spitting into her very being. But he does not call her that. To him, she is his Ascendant, his Empress Supreme. She is immune to their violence. And she fills him to overflowing.

When the hunters are sent, one by one, the wolf and his Empress do not evade. They meet the hunter, teeth flashing and hackles raised, unafraid and unwilling to lose their kingdom. Each hunter drops to their knees, whimpering and frightened, awed by their terrible might. The hunters are always allowed to depart unscathed.

After many years of this, the villagers bring a witch to the woods. This witch is enthralled by the wolf pair, such power and pulchritude. Tasked with dismemberment, the witch instead offers an alternative.

The wolves are wary, suspicious. For never has another shown compassion to them in these forms. Only the other has looked with tender eyes upon the furred and flanked body. The witch convinces them with strong words and assurances. _I can free you._ Her’s is a rich voice, emollient. They are persuaded.

When the next night breaks across their domain, the witch meets them at the betrayer tree. Stillness collects, thick and silent. The wolf is filled with unease.

Then, a storm of magic engulfs them, light-drenched shadowshapes swirl and lift, bringing both beasts above the trees, into the sky.

The wolf gasps. He has not seen the sky in stretched out, lonely years. The moonlight blares through his dirtied bristles, glinting on the blackened fur. The flare of his Empress is excruciating. It wounds and stimulates. He is hypnotized by her suspended twirling, effulgence overpowering him. She is all the more Ascendant.

With a strike of wind against their bodies and a burst of chant from the witch below, both wolves begin to dismantle, self-changing and deconstructing. The wolf feels his cells divide and bones break. But there is no suffering. Only an opening of shifting jaw to heave through altered lungs.

His Ascendant is beside him, body once what was, reflecting glints of moon and smiles. Her hair spreads fingers through the grasping sky. And she smiles at him. He looks upon himself, body barely recognizable as _self, though long-forgotten_. 

In the air, they are pieces of a whole. Both released and returned. One from his punishment. One from her chosen life. And when their lips meet for the first time, they eclipse the sun itself.

**Author's Note:**

> ✨Thank you for reading ✨ 
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](https://briaeveridian.tumblr.com/) where my SW obsession lives aggressively.


End file.
